Tales of Madness (20 page)

That was enough for him!

As soon as he had completely regained his composure, he would go to his office manager and apologize, and he would resume his bookkeeping as before. Only now his office manager was not to expect too much from him as he had in the past; from time to time, between the recording of one entry and another, he
had to allow him to make a brief visit, yes, to Siberia... or rather,
or rather... into the forests of the Congo.

"It only takes a moment, my dear sir. Now that the train whistled..."

Mrs. Frola and Mr. Ponza,
Her Son-in-Law

Now, then, it's understandable that when a daughter gets married, she leaves her mother's home and goes to live with her husband, even if it means going to another town. But then that this mother, unable to stand living far from her daughter, leaves
her town and home and follows her, and that she goes to live in a
separate house in a town where both daughter and mother are strangers — that is not so readily understandable. Unless you are ready to suppose that the incompatibility between mother-in-law and son-in-law is so great that it's just impossible for them to live together, even under these circumstances.

Naturally, in Valdana, everybody at first thought that this was the case. And, of course, the one whose reputation suffered was Mr. Ponza. As for Mrs. Frola, there were some who supposed that perhaps she, too, was somewhat to blame, either because she seemed somewhat lacking in compassion or because she appeared stubborn or intolerant. Nonetheless, everyone took into consideration the motherly love which drew her close to her daughter, even though she was condemned to live apart from her.

Even the personal appearance of the pair, you've got to admit, played a great role in determining everyone's attitude towards them; hence the special consideration for Mrs. Frola, while the image immediately formed and stamped in everyone's mind of Mr. Ponza was that of a hard, or rather even cruel man. Stocky, no neck at all, as black as an African, with thick bristly hair over a low forehead, dense, severe, interlocking eyebrows, a heavy, shiny policeman's moustache, and in his somber, glaring eyes that had scarcely any white, a violent exasperated intensity hardly kept in check (it's unclear whether that look stemmed from deep sorrow or from the contempt he felt at the sight of others) — Mr. Ponza certainly doesn't have the looks to win anyone's affection or confidence. Mrs. Frola, on the other hand, is a delicate, pale, elderly lady, with features that are fine and quite noble. She has an air of melancholy, but it is light, vague, and gentle, and doesn't prevent her from being affable with everyone.

Now Mrs. Frola gave the townsfolk immediate proof of this affability — which comes so naturally to her — and, as a result, the aversion for Mr. Ponza immediately grew stronger in the hearts of everyone. Her disposition seemed clear; not only is she mild, submissive, and tolerant, but also full of indulgent compassion for the wrong her son-in-law is doing to her. Moreover, it was discovered that Mr. Ponza is not satisfied with relegating this poor mother to a separate house, but pushes his cruelty to such a point as to forbid her from even seeing her daughter.

What happens, however, is that Mrs. Frola, during her visits with the ladies of Valdana, immediately protests that it's not cruelty, not cruelty, as she extends her little hands before her, truly distressed that one can think this of her son-in-law. And she hastens to extol all his virtues, and to say as many good things as possible and imaginable about him. What love, what care, what concern he shows not only for her daughter but for her as well... Yes, yes... for her as well. He's thoughtful and unselfish... Oh, no, not cruel, for heaven's sake! There's only this: Mr. Ponza wants his dear little wife all, all for himself, and so much so that he wants even the love that she must have for her mother (and which he, of course, admits is only natural) to reach her not directly, but through him, by way of him. That's all! Yes, it might seem cruel, this attitude of his, but it isn't. It's something else, something else that she, Mrs. Frola, understands quite well. It disturbs her a great deal that she can't find the words to express it. It's his nature. That's it... Oh, no, it's perhaps a kind of illness... so to speak. My God, all you have to do is look into his eyes. Perhaps at first they make a bad impression, those eyes, but they reveal everything to anyone like her, who knows how to read what's in them. They speak of an entire world of love all bottled up within him, a world in which his wife must live and never leave, not even for a moment, and in which no other person, not even her mother,
may enter. Jealousy? Yes, perhaps, but only if you care to define
this total exclusivity of love crudely.

"How are you, Tildina?"

"Very well, Mama. And you?"

"As the good Lord wishes, my daughter. Let down the small basket! Let it down!"

As you can easily understand, Mrs. Frola's resignation and this tolerance she claims to have acquired for her martyrdom increases Mr. Ponza's discredit, and all the more so because she does her utmost to excuse him with her lengthy explanations.

It is with real indignation, therefore, and fear, I might add, that the ladies of Valdana who received Mrs. Frola's first visit, receive the announcement the following day of another unexpected visit, that of Mr. Ponza. He begs them to grant him
just a couple of minutes of their time to hear "a declaration I feel
duty-bound to make," if it wouldn't inconvenience them.

Mr. Ponza shows up, his face flushed, the blood almost bursting from his veins, his eyes sterner and gloomier than ever. The handkerchief he holds in his hand, as well as the cuffs and collar of his shirt, clash in their whiteness with his swarthy complexion and his dark hair and suit. He continually wipes away the perspiration dripping from his low forehead and bristly purplish cheeks, a gesture due not so much to the heat, but to the extreme, obvious, violent effort he makes to control himself, and which causes even his huge hands with their long fingernails to tremble. In this living room and in that, in front of the ladies who gaze at him almost in terror, he first of all asks whether Mrs. Frola, his mother-in-law, came by to see them the day before. Then, with pain, distress, and excitement increasing by the moment he asks if she talked to them about her daughter, and if she said that he absolutely forbids her to see her daughter and to go up and pay her a visit in her apartment.

Seeing him so troubled, the ladies, as you can well imagine, hasten to answer him. They report that yes, it's true, Mrs. Frola told them about his prohibiting her to see her daughter, but that she also said every possible and imaginable good thing about him, going so far as not only to excuse him, but as also to deny that he deserves even the slightest hint of blame for the prohibition itself.

But instead of calming down, Mr. Ponza becomes even more upset at this reply from the ladies. His eyes become sterner, more fixed, more somber; the huge drops of perspiration become more frequent, and finally, making an even more violent effort to control himself, he gets to the "declaration I feel duty-bound to make."

Simply put, it's this: Mrs. Frola, poor thing, though it doesn't seem so, is mad.

Yes, she's been mad for the past four years. And her madness consists precisely in this: she believes that he refuses to allow her to see her daughter. Which daughter? She's dead — her daughter has been dead for the past four years. And Mrs. Frola went mad precisely as a result of her grief over this death. She was fortunate to go mad. Yes, fortunate, because madness was a way of escaping her desperate grief. Naturally, she couldn't have escaped in any other way than this, that is, by believing that it wasn't true that her daughter had died, and that instead, her son-in-law refuses to allow her to see her any longer.

Simply because he feels it's his duty to be charitable towards an unhappy soul, he, Mr. Ponza, has been humoring this piteous folly of hers for the past four years at the cost of many grave sacrifices. He maintains two homes at a cost well beyond his means: one for himself, and one for her. And he obliges his second wife, who fortunately lends herself willingly and charitably to the scheme, to humor her in this folly, too. But charity, duty... mind you, they can only be stretched so far. Moreover, because of his position as a civil servant, Mr. Ponza cannot allow the people in town to believe such a cruel and unlikely thing of him, that is, that either due to jealousy or to something else, he is forbidding a poor mother so see her own daughter.