A BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP (continued 2)

As a matter of fact the two women were only discussing domestic details, over a cup of tea; the washing, servants, etc. But directly I saw Ada I realised that her voice was not put on. I was the first to notice a change in her face, and was greatly moved by it; and her voice, even though it did not correspond to any feeling in particular, mirrored her whole personality so faithfully that I at once felt it to be genuine. I am not a doctor, so the possibility of her being ill did not occur to me; I was inclined to attribute the change in her appearance to the effects of her convalescence after childbirth. But how was it that Guido had not noticed the great change that had come over his wife? I who knew her eyes by heart, and used to fear them so much because I had at once realised how coldly they took stock of things and persons, whether to accept or reject them, now saw at once how changed they were. They seemed to have grown bigger, to have grown almost out of their sockets in their effort to see more clearly. Those great eyes made a painful impression in her pale and shrunken face. She clasped me warmly by the hand.

“You are so good,” she said. “I know you never miss an opportunity of coming home to see your wife and child.”

Her hand was damp with perspiration, and I know that to be a sign of weakness. But I thought that as she grew stronger Ada would recover her original colour and the firm sculptural lines of her cheeks and brow.

I felt sure her words were meant as a reproof to Guido, and replied good-naturedly that Guido, as the head of the business, had more responsibilities than I had, and was more tied to the office.

She gave me a searching look, as though to discover whether I was speaking seriously.

“All the same,” she said, “I should have thought he might have found a little time for his wife and children,” and her voice sounded quite tearful. She recovered herself however, and added with an appealing smile:

“Then there is his shooting and fishing, as well as business; and that takes up a great deal of time.”

With an eloquence which surprised me she proceeded to enumerate the delicious viands that appeared on their table in consequence of Guido’s sporting expeditions.

“I would willingly go without it all,” she added with a sigh. But she did not complain of being unhappy. On the contrary, she said she could not imagine now being without the twins, whom she adored. She added with a touch of humour that she loved them even more now that each of them had its own nurse. She did not get much sleep, but at least when she had once fallen asleep there was no one to disturb her. When I asked her if she really slept so little, she became grave at once and said pathetically that that was her chief trouble. Then she added more lightly:

“But I am better now.”

She left soon after, and gave as a reason for leaving that she must go round and see her mother before it got dark, and that she could not stand the temperature of our rooms which were heated by two great stoves. To me they seemed only pleasantly warm, and I thought it a sign of hardiness on her part to find them too hot.

“You don’t seem so delicate after all,” I said, smiling. “You will see how different you feel when you have reached my age.”

She was flattered to hear herself spoken of as being too young. Augusta and I accompanied her to the gate. She seemed to feel a great need of our affection, for during those few steps she walked between us, taking first Augusta’s arm and then mine. I at once stiffened mine, for fear of giving way to my old habit of squeezing the arm of every woman who came my way. At the gate she went on talking for some time, and at the mention of her father the tears stood in her eyes, for the third time within a quarter of an hour. When she had gone I remarked to Augusta that she was not a woman, but a fountain. Although I realised that Ada was ill I did not attach much importance to it. Her eyes had become larger, her face thinner; her voice had changed and her whole character seemed to have become more affectionate and clinging than was her wont, but I attributed all this to weakness after giving birth to twins. In fact I proved myself a magnificent observer in that nothing escaped me, but a perfect ignoramus because I did not utter the one important word: Disease.

Next day the obstetrician who was treating Ada had a consultation with Dr. Paoli, who at once spoke the word which I had failed to say: Morbus Basedowii. Guido told me all about it and described the symptoms very learnedly, expressing much sympathy for Ada, who suffered a great deal. Without wishing to be unkind I think that neither his sympathy nor his knowledge was very great. He assumed a melancholy air when he mentioned his wife, but while dictating letters to Carmen he manifested a great joie de vivre and delight in giving instructions. He always believed that the Basedow who had given his name to the disease had been Goethe’s friend, though when I looked it up in an encyclopedia I saw at once that he was quite a different person.

Basedow’s disease is undoubtedly a very remarkable one. It was most important for me to have found out about it. I read various monographs on the subject and felt as if the secret of our physical existence had only just been revealed to me. I think there must be a good many people like me who go through periods in which certain ideas usurp their mind to the exclusion of every other. But the same thing happens in the community; now it will be Darwin who reigns supreme, whereas before it was Robespierre or Napoleon. At one time it will be Liebig or even Leopardi; at another, Bismarck fills the whole horizon!

But I alone lived by Basedow! He seemed to me to have penetrated to the root of life, and shown it to be as follows: all living beings are ranged along a certain line, at one end of which is Basedow’s disease. All who are suffering from this disease use up their vital force recklessly in a mad vertiginous rhythm, the heart beating without control. At the other end of the line are those wretched beings, shrivelled up by native avarice, and doomed to die from a disease which looks like exhaustion but is really cowardice. The happy mean between these two maladies is to be found in the middle of the line, and is called health, though it is really only a suspension of movement. Between the centre and Basedow’s end are to be found all those whose life is consumed in desire, ambition, pleasure or even work; towards the opposite end those who merely sprinkle crumbs on the plate of life and eke out a long, miserable existence which can only be a burden to society. But even this burden seems to be a necessary part of life. Society goes forward because Basedowians urge it on, and does not fall into the abyss only because the others hold it back. I am convinced that if one were to constitute a society one might do it more simply, but it is actually made like this, with a goitre at one end and a dropsy at the other; and nothing can be done about it. Those at the centre have the beginnings of either goitre or dropsy, and all along the line throughout the whole of humanity there is no such thing as perfect health.

According to Augusta, Ada had not actually a goitre, but she had all the other symptoms of the disease. Poor Ada! She had seemed to me the embodiment of health and perfect balance, so that for a long time I imagined her to have chosen her husband in the same cool, calculating spirit in which her father selected his merchandise. And now she had been attacked by a disease which drove her in quite a contrary direction, into psychological perversity. I too suffered from a very slight form of her disease, and it took me some while to get rid of it; for a long time I thought too much about Basedow. I still believe that at whatever particular spot of the universe one settles down one ends by becoming poisoned; it is essential to keep moving. Life has its poisons, but counter-poisons too which balance them. It is only by moving about that one can avoid the first and profit by the second.

My disease became an obsession, a dream, almost a nightmare to me. It must have originated in a certain line of reasoning; by perversion we mean a deviation from health, the kind of health which was ours during part of our life. Now I knew what Ada had been like when in good health. Might not her perversity lead her to love me whom she had spurned when she was well?

I don’t know how this fear—or hope—first took root in my mind.

Perhaps it was because Ada’s soft and husky voice seemed to express love when she was speaking to me. Poor Ada had grown very ugly, and I no longer found her desirable; but when I came to look back over our past relationship I could not help feeling that if she had really suddenly fallen in love with me I should be almost in the same unfortunate situation as Guido with regard to the Englishman who had sold him sixty tons of sulphate of copper. It was a precisely similar case! Several years ago I had proposed to Ada, and had never revoked my proposal except in so far as I had married her sister instead. There was no law to protect her but the laws of chivalry. I felt myself so deeply pledged to her that if, after the lapse of many, many years she had come to me with Basedow’s goitre and all complete, I should have felt obliged to honour my signature.

But the prospect, I remember, made me feel more tenderly towards Ada. Up to that time, when I was told of the suffering Guido caused Ada, I had not of course been glad, but at the same time I could not help thinking with a certain satisfaction of my home which Ada had refused to share, and where people did not suffer. Now the tables were turned; the Ada who had rejected me with disdain no longer existed, unless my medical authorities erred.

Ada was seriously ill. A few days after this Dr. Paoli recommended her being sent away from her family to a nursing-home at Bologna. I heard this from Guido, but Augusta also told me that even at such a moment he had not spared poor Ada’s feelings. He had the impudence to suggest putting Carmen in charge of the house during her absence. Ada had not the courage to say openly what she thought of such a proposal, but she did say that she would not stir from home unless she was allowed to entrust the management of everything to her Aunt Maria. Guido agreed at once, but continued to toy with the idea of having Carmen at his disposal, in Ada’s place. One day he said to Carmen that if she had not been so busy at the office he would have asked her to look after his house for him. Luciano and I looked at each other, and could neither of us hide an expression of malicious mirth. Carmen blushed and murmured that she could never really have accepted.

“Yes,” said Guido angrily. “It is those idiotic conventions which prevent one doing what one wants, however convenient it may be.”

He said no more however, and it is surprising that he should have cut short such an interesting sermon.

The whole family went to the station to see Ada off. Augusta asked me to bring some flowers for her sister. I arrived a little late with a lovely bunch of orchids which I handed to Augusta. Ada stood watching us, and when Augusta gave her the flowers she said:

“I thank you both with all my heart.”

She meant that she looked on the flowers as coming from me too. I regarded this as an expression of sisterly affection, sweet to receive, though rather chilly. Basedow certainly had nothing to do with it.

Poor Ada looked like a bride, with her great eyes apparently wide with happiness. Her disease was able to simulate every emotion.

Guido went with her to settle her in, and was to return in a few days’ time. We stood on the platform waiting for the train to start. Ada remained at the window and went on waving her handkerchief till we were out of sight.

Then we went home with Signora Malfenti, who was quite overcome. When she parted from us she kissed Augusta and then gave me a kiss too.

“Forgive me,” she said, laughing through her tears. “I did it without thinking, but if you will let me I should like to give you another kiss.”

Even little Anna, who was now twelve years old, wanted to give me a kiss. Alberta who was about to give up her project of a national theatre in order to become engaged, and who was generally rather cold to me, shook me warmly by the hand on this occasion. They all felt very kindly towards me because my wife was in blooming health, and at the same time they were able to manifest their dislike for Guido who had let his wife get ill.

But it was just about now that I showed signs of being not quite such a perfect husband. I was the innocent cause of a good deal of pain to my wife on account of a dream which I told her about, without thinking.

This was my dream: Augusta, Ada and I were all three looking out of a window together, the smallest window that was to be found in either of our three houses, Ada’s, mine and my mother-in-law’s. We were at the kitchen window at my mother-in-law’s house, which in reality opens on to a little courtyard, though in my dream it opened straight on to the Corso. The window-frame was so narrow that Ada, who was in the middle and had hold of both our arms, was actually leaning against me. I looked at her and found that her eyes had become quite cold and definite again, and that the outline of her face had recovered its former purity; I could see her neck covered with the light curls I had known so well when she used to turn her back on me. In spite of her appearance of coldness, which I regarded as a sign of recovered health, she clung to me as closely as I thought she was doing during the table-turning on the evening of our engagement. I said joyfully to Augusta, making an effort to interest myself in her too: “Look! She has completely recovered. But where is Basedow?” I asked a second time; and then I saw him. It was he whom the crowd was following. He was an old beggar man, dressed in a stiff brocade cloak that was all in rags: a mane of untidy white hair, blown about by the wind, covered his massive head, and his eyes were starting from their sockets with fear, a look I had seen in wild beasts at bay, a menacing, fearful look. And the crowd shouted after him: “Kill him, the charlatan!” Then came an interval of empty darkness. Immediately after this I found myself alone with Ada on the steepest stairs in any of our three houses, the stairs which lead up to the roof of my house. She was standing a few steps above me, but she was facing me, and seemed as if she wanted to come down the stairs while I was going up. I put my arms round her legs and she bent over towards me, either from weakness or because she wished to be closer to me. For a moment I seemed to see her disfigured by her illness, but looking at her anxiously I succeeded in seeing her again as I had seen her in the window, in all her health and beauty. She said to me in her usual hard voice: “Go on in front, I will follow you directly.” I turned eagerly to go down, but had just time to see the trap-door in the roof open very gradually and Basedow’s head peer through, with its white mane and half-fearful, half-threatening face. I saw his feeble legs too and his poor thin body, which was only half hidden by the cloak. I managed to run away, but I cannot remember whether I was only going in front of Ada or trying to escape from her.

I apparently woke up exhausted in the middle of the night, and in my state of semi-consciousness told the whole or part of the dream to Augusta, before falling into a deep, restful sleep. I think in that semi-conscious state I must have blindly followed my old desire to confess my sins.

Augusta’s face next morning had the waxen pallor it always wore on state occasions. I remembered my dream perfectly, but could not remember quite how much of it I had told her. She said with an air of tragic resignation:

“You are unhappy because she is ill and has gone away, and now you are dreaming about her.”

I protested, laughing, and teased her a little. Ada was not the significant figure in my dream, but Basedow, and I told her about my studies and their practical application. But I don’t know whether I succeeded in convincing her. It is difficult to defend yourself when you are taken unawares in a dream. It is quite a different matter to return to your wife fresh from having betrayed her, and in full consciousness of so doing. But such manifestations of jealousy on Augusta’s part could not really do me any harm, for she loved Ada too much to let it cast a shadow between them, and she was more tender than ever towards me, and more grateful for the smallest sign of affection.

Guido returned from Bologna a few days later, with the best possible news. The head of the nursing-home guaranteed a perfect cure provided that, when she returned home, Ada lived a very quiet life, and was spared any kind of worry. Guido naïvely told us the diagnosis, quite unconscious that it confirmed a good many suspicions which the Malfenti family had entertained about him. I said to Augusta:

“I am threatened with more kisses from your mother.”

Guido was apparently not very comfortable at home under Aunt Maria’s management. He would walk up and down the office muttering:

“Two children ... three nurses ... no wife!”

He did not come very often to the office either, for he went out more and more often fishing and shooting, and worked off his ill humour on his prey. But when, towards the end of the year, the news reached us that Ada was supposed to be cured and was about to come home again, he did not seem wild with joy. Had he got used to Aunt Maria, or did he see her so seldom that he found her very easy to put up with? Naturally the only sign he gave me of not being better pleased was that he expressed a doubt as to whether Ada was not leaving the clinic rather too soon, and before they could be certain that she might not have another relapse. And when after a comparatively short time, in fact in the course of the winter, she was obliged to return to Bologna, he said to me triumphantly:

“Didn’t I tell you so?”

But I think the only joy he felt was the triumphant sense of having been able to foresee something. He did not wish any harm to Ada, but he would gladly have kept her at Bologna for some time yet.

When Ada returned, Augusta had just given birth to Alfio, and was still in bed. She showed a touching solicitude for Ada. She asked me to meet her at the station with some flowers, and to tell her that she wanted to see her that same day if possible. And if Ada could not come straight from the station she begged me to come back at once so as to tell her all about her, and whether she had entirely recovered her beauty, of which the family was so proud.

Guido, Alberta and I were the only ones at the station to meet her, because Signora Malfenti spent a great part of her time with Augusta. On the platform Guido tried to convince us how pleased he was to see Ada again; but Alberta pretended to be very absent-minded, in order, as she told me afterwards, not to have to reply to his remarks. For my part I no longer found any difficulty in pretending with Guido. I had got quite used to pretending not to notice his partiality for Carmen, and I had never dared to allude to the way he treated his wife. So I had no trouble in appearing to lend him my best attention when he dilated on his joy at his dear wife’s return.

When the train came in punctually at twelve o’clock, he hurried forward to meet his wife who was just getting out. He took her in his arms and kissed her affectionately. When I saw him stooping down to kiss her, I said to myself: “What a good actor!” Then he took Ada by the hand and led her up to us, saying: “She has come back to us at last, beautiful as ever!” In this he showed himself for what he was, a sham and a humbug, for if he had really looked the poor woman in the face he would have seen that she had nothing left of the beauty we had known. Ada’s face had lost all its shape; though she had got fatter, her cheeks seemed to have grown in the wrong place, as though the flesh had forgotten where it belonged and had become attached too far down. So that they looked more like swellings than cheeks. Her eyes had returned to their sockets, but it had been impossible to repair the ravages they had caused during the time they were displaced. The clear and characteristic lines of her face had become blurred and distorted. When I took leave of her outside the station, I saw by the brilliant rays of the winter sun that the whole colouring of her face, which I once loved so much, had become changed. She had grown paler, and there were little red patches here and there on her cheeks. It seemed as if health had departed from her face and only a feeble imitation had taken its place.

I told Augusta that Ada had completely recovered her girlish beauty, and she was delighted. What surprised me was that, after she had seen her several times, she entirely confirmed my false report. She said:

“Yes, she is as lovely now as when she was a girl, and my child will be just like her.”

Evidently a sister’s eye is not very discriminating. It was some time before I saw Ada again. She had too many children to look after, and so had we. Ada and Augusta used to arrange to meet several times a week, but always at times when I was out.

The time for making up our balance-sheet was approaching, and I had a great deal to do. I have never worked so hard as during this period of my life. Some days I would remain at my desk till ten o’clock at night. Guido offered to get me an accountant, but I would not hear of it. I had accepted the job and I meant to see it through. I wanted to make up to Guido for the fatal month when I had been away from the office, and I was glad that Carmen should see how industrious I was, for she would know it could only have been inspired by my love of Guido.

But as I proceeded in making out the accounts, I gradually began to discover the heavy losses we had incurred during our first year of business. I was worried by it and said something to Guido about it privately, but he was just going out shooting and would not wait to hear what I had to say.

“You will see that it is not as serious as you think, and besides the year is not over yet.”

There was exactly a week before the New Year. Then I took Augusta into my confidence. At first she could only think of it as a possible loss to me. Women are always like that, and Augusta was unusually excited, even for a woman, at the thought of my personal losses.

Should not I, she said, be held partly responsible for Guido’s losses? She wanted me at once to consult a solicitor. I must meanwhile break off all connexion with Guido, and stop going to the office.

It was not easy to make her see that I could not be held responsible for anything, as I was only one of Guido’s employees. She maintained that as I had no regular salary I could not be considered as an employee, but was more like a partner. Even after I had succeeded in convincing her, she remained of the same opinion still, because she then discovered that I should lose nothing if I stopped going to the office, where I should certainly end by ruining my business reputation. Good Lord! My business reputation! But I agreed with her that it was important for me to preserve it, and though her arguments were all wrong it was decided that I should do as she wished. She agreed to my finishing the balance-sheet as I had begun it, but said I must then arrange to return to my own little study, where it was true that I made no money, but where I also could not lose any.

Then I made a curious discovery about myself. However much I wished to do so I could not give up my work. I was astonished! To explain how this could be I must here have recourse to an analogy. I remembered it was the custom in England in the olden days to punish criminals condemned to hard labour by binding them on a wheel worked by waterpower; thus compelling the victim to move his legs to a certain rhythm, as otherwise they would be broken. All work strikes one as having this compulsory character. The position remains the same whether one works or not; and I may say that Olivi and I were both equally bound to the wheel, the only difference being that I did not have to move my legs. Of course the result was different, but I now know for a certainty that it deserved neither praise nor blame. The point really is whether one is bound to a wheel that is moving or standing still. The difficulty of freeing oneself is the same in either case.

I went on going to the office for several days after I had finished my balance-sheet, although I had made up my mind not to go again. When I left the house I was still uncertain; I walked uncertainly in a direction which was almost always that of the office, and, as I went on, the direction became more and more definite till I found myself sitting on my usual chair opposite Guido. Fortunately he begged me at this moment on no account to desert my post, and I at once agreed to remain, since I had meanwhile discovered that I was chained to it.

I closed my balance-sheet on the fifteenth of January. It was a calamitous one! We closed with a loss of half our capital. Guido did not want to show it to young Olivi, fearing that he might give us away; but I insisted, hoping that with his great experience he might discover some error in it which would change the whole position. Some entry, I thought, might have got shifted from credit to debit by mistake, which would make a very considerable difference. Olivi smilingly promised Guido to behave with the utmost discretion, and spent a whole day going through the accounts with me. Unfortunately he found nothing wrong with them. I confess I learned a great deal from that revision, and should feel quite ready now to draw up much more formidable balance-sheets.

“And what do you propose to do now?” inquired the spectacled youth as he went away. I knew very well what he wanted to suggest. My father, who had talked to me about business from my childhood up, had already taught me what ought to be done. Granted that we had lost half our capital, the laws of sound finance decreed that we ought to liquidate the business, and possibly start it again on a fresh basis. I allowed him to repeat the advice. He added:

“It is a mere formality.” Then he said smiling: “If you don’t, it may cost you dear!”

That evening Guido glanced at the balance-sheet, which he had not yet had time to take in. He did it without any method, verifying this or that entry at random. I wanted to put a stop to his futile labour, and told him what Olivi had said: that we ought to go through the little formality of liquidating the business.

Up to then Guido’s face had been contorted by the effort to find a mistake in the accounts which would explain everything. He frowned and contracted his brow like someone who has a bad taste in his mouth. But when I told him what Olivi had said his face suddenly cleared, and he was all attention. He could not understand at first, but when he did he burst out laughing. I interpreted his expression thus: face to face with those immutable figures he remained hard and bitter, but he recovered his gaiety and self-confidence directly the painful problem was put into the shade by a proposal which demanded a rapid and final decision.

He refused to understand. The advice seemed to him to have been given by an enemy. I explained that its chief value was in regard to the obvious danger of our losing more money and becoming bankrupt. It would be a criminal offence to go bankrupt after a balance-sheet like the one we had now registered in our books, unless we had taken some such step as that advised by Olivi. And I added:

“The punishment ordained by our law for criminal bankruptcy is prison.”

Guido’s face became so crimson that I feared for a moment he was going to have a stroke. He shouted:

“In that case I don’t need any advice from Olivi! I can deal with it perfectly well myself if that happens.”

I was impressed by his air of determination, and felt as if I had to deal with someone who was perfectly conscious of his own responsibility. I lowered my voice. I quite went over to his side and, forgetting that I had just put forward Olivi’s advice as worthy of consideration, I said:

“That is just what I said to Olivi. It is your responsibility, and it does not concern us, whatever you may choose to decide about a business which belongs only to you and your father.”

As a matter of fact it was to my wife and not to Olivi I had said this, but it was true that I had said it to somebody. After listening to Guido’s manly speech I should have felt quite equal to saying it to Olivi, for I have always found decision and courage irresistible. I cannot help loving recklessness too, though it is not always the result of those two qualities, but often of very inferior ones.

As I wanted to repeat everything he said to Augusta, in order to set her mind at rest, I still insisted:

“You know they say, and probably with truth, that I have no gift whatever for business. I can carry out what you tell me to do, but I can’t assume any responsibility for what you do.”

He assented eagerly. The rôle I had sketched out for him gave him so much satisfaction that he quite forgot his annoyance over the unfavourable balance-sheet. He said emphatically:

“I alone am responsible. Everything is in my name and I absolutely refuse to allow anyone else to share the responsibility with me.”

This was all excellent for repeating to Augusta; in fact it was a great deal more than I had asked for. And you should have seen the air with which he said it; he looked more like an apostle than someone on the brink of bankruptcy! Supporting himself comfortably on the unresisting balance-sheet he played to perfection the part of lord and master. On this occasion, as so often in the course of our life together, my sudden impulse of affection was quenched by his expression of ridiculous and exaggerated self-esteem. Yes, there was no getting out of it; that great musician played out of tune! I said sharply:

“Do you wish me to make a copy of the balance-sheet to-morrow, to send to your father?”

I was on the point of saying something more drastic still, namely that directly I had closed the accounts I intended to leave the office and not come back again. The only reason I did not do so was that I could not imagine how I should fill up my spare time. But my question was an admirable substitute for the statement I had refrained from making. I had incidentally reminded him that he was not the only master in that office.

He showed some surprise at my question; it did not seem to him quite in keeping with what had been said before, to which I had evidently agreed; and he replied in his former tone:

“I will instruct you how to make the copy.”

I loudly protested. I have never in all my life shouted so much as I did at Guido; sometimes he really seemed to be deaf. I said that the law regarded the accountant as responsible for the accounts, and I made it clear that I was not going to provide him with purely imaginary columns of figures.

He turned pale and admitted that I was right, but that it was in his power to forbid me to make extracts from his books. I was obliged to agree, whereupon he declared that he would write to his father himself. It seemed as if he were going to sit down at once and do so, but he changed his mind and proposed that we should go and get a breath of fresh air. I had nothing against it; I imagined that he had not yet digested the balance-sheet, and wanted to take a little exercise in order to do so.

Our walk reminded me of the night I got engaged. We could not see the moon, because there was a good deal of mist high up; but lower down the air was quite clear, and we could walk along without thinking. Guido remembered that evening too, and said:

“This is the first time we have been out together after dark since that evening. Do you remember? You were explaining to me that kissing went on in the moon as well as here. But that kiss in the moon is for eternity; I am sure of it although we can’t see the moon to-night. But here on earth....”

Was he going to begin talking about Ada again, his poor sick wife? I interrupted him, but quite gently, almost as if I agreed with him (had I not come with him in order to help him to forget?).

“Of course one can’t always be kissing here below. Besides, it is only the image of a kiss they have up there. Kissing is, above all, movement.”

I tried to avoid anything that bore on his affairs, Ada and the balance-sheet, but I was only just in time to stop myself saying something that was on the tip of my tongue, namely that up there in the moon a kiss did not produce twins. But he could find no better way to escape that balance-sheet than by complaining of his other misfortunes. And, as I had foreseen, he began talking against Ada. He thought her illness made her irritable, jealous and at the same time lacking in affection. He ended by exclaiming mournfully:

“Life is hard and unjust.”

I felt it was impossible for me to say a single word which implied any criticism of him or Ada. But I felt I must say something. He had ended by discussing life and had found two epithets for it which certainly did not err on the side of originality. If I succeeded in finding something better it was because I was able to start by criticising what he had said. One is often led to say things because of some chance association in the sound of the words; and directly one has spoken one begins to wonder if what one has said was worth the breath spent on it, and occasionally discovers that one has started a new idea. I said:

“Life is neither good nor bad; it is original.”

When I thought it over I felt as if I had said something rather important. Looking at it like that I felt as if I were seeing life for the first time, with all its gaseous, liquid and solid bodies. If I had talked about it to someone who was strange to it, and therefore deprived of an ordinary common sense, he would have remained gasping at the thought of the huge, purposeless structure. He would have asked: “But how could you endure it?” And if he had inquired about everything in detail, from the heavenly bodies hung up in the sky which can be seen but not touched, to the mystery that surrounds death, he would certainly have exclaimed: “Very original!”

“So life is original, is it?” said Guido, laughing. “Where did you read that?”

I did not bother to assure him I had not read it anywhere, for in that case he would have attached much less importance to my words. But the more I thought of it the more original life seemed to me. And one did not need to get outside it in order to realise how fantastically it was put together. One need only remind oneself of all that we men expect from life to see how very strange it is, and to arrive at the conclusion that man has found his way into it by mistake and does not really belong there.

Though we had not agreed beforehand in which direction we should go, we found ourselves, like last time, on the ascent to Via Belvedere. When we reached the parapet on which he had lain last time, Guido climbed up on it and lay down just as before. He was humming to himself, probably still oppressed by his thoughts, and no doubt going over and over again the inexorable figures in his account-book. I was thinking that it was on that very spot I had wanted to kill him, and when I compared my feelings then with my feelings to-day I could not help wondering afresh at the incomparable originality of life. But I suddenly remembered that a very little while ago I had been angry with poor Guido for having wounded my vanity, and that on one of the worst days of his life. I tried to analyse my feelings. The tortures which Guido had suffered from the balance-sheet I had drawn up had caused me no particular pain, and I began to entertain a doubt regarding myself, and at the same time remembered a curious passage of my childhood. The doubt was this: “Am I good or bad?” The memory was inspired suddenly by this doubt which I had evidently entertained before, for I saw myself as a tiny child, still dressed, I am almost certain, in petticoats, and lifting up my face to ask my mother, who was smiling down at me: “Am I good or naughty?” The doubt must have been put into the child’s head by having heard itself called good by so many people and naughty, in fun, by so many others. It is not surprising that the child became embarrassed by the dilemma. Was ever anything so original as life? It is extraordinary that the doubt which it had imposed on the child in so puerile a form should still remain unsolved by the grown-up person, even after he had lived half his life.

Once more by night, and on the very spot where I had once been tempted to commit a murder, I fell a prey to that doubt in a most acute form. The child whose head had only just emerged from its baby cap could not have suffered much when that doubt began to stir in its mind, for children are taught that even if you are naughty you can become good again. In order to escape from my agony of mind I tried to believe the same, and I succeeded. Otherwise I should have had to mourn over myself and Guido and our melancholy lot. But the resolution I took at that moment renewed the illusion! I resolved to stand by Guido, and collaborate with him in developing his business, on which depended his own life and that of his family; and I resolved to do it without any hope of personal gain. I saw myself travelling, negotiating and intriguing, all in his interests, and even entertained the possibility of becoming, in order to help him, a really remarkable and enterprising business man. Such were the thoughts that went through my mind on one dark night of this very original life!

But Guido had already stopped thinking about the balance-sheet. He left his post on the wall and seemed to have recovered his serenity. As if he had just drawn a conclusion from some line of reasoning of which I knew nothing, he told me that he had decided to say nothing to his father, lest the poor old man should undertake the huge journey from his summer sunshine into our wintry fog. He went on to say that the losses seemed enormous at first sight, but that they were not really so bad if one did not have to bear them all alone. He would ask Ada to make herself responsible for half the sum and in return would give her part of the next year’s profits. He himself would bear the other half of the losses.

I said nothing. I felt that it was impossible for me to offer any advice, as I should be drawn into doing exactly what I did not want to do, and setting myself up as an arbiter between husband and wife. Besides, at that moment I was so full of good resolutions that I thought it would be really quite a good thing for Ada to become a partner in a business run by us.

I accompanied Guido to the door of his house, and gave him a long handshake, silently to renew my vow of good will towards him. Then I tried to find something nice to say to him, and at last invented the following:

“I hope the twins will have a good night, and allow you to get some sleep; you must be in need of rest.”

As I went away I bit my lips with vexation at having found nothing better to say. As if I did not know that now the twins had a nurse each they slept about a quarter of a mile away from his room and could not possibly have disturbed his slumber! But in any case he must have understood that my intentions were good, for he accepted my good wishes gratefully. When I got home I found that Augusta had gone to her bedroom with the children. Alfio was at her breast and Antonia was asleep in her cot, with the back of her curly head turned towards us. I had to explain why I was late, so I told her of the method Guido had evolved for getting out of his difficulties. Augusta thought Guido’s suggestion shameful:

“I would refuse if I were Ada,” she exclaimed vehemently, though in a low voice so as not to disturb the children.

I began to argue with her, still under the influence of my virtuous resolution:

“So if I were to get into the same difficulties as Guido you would not help me?” I said.

“It is an entirely different thing,” she said, laughing. “We should always want to do what was best for them!” and she pointed to the two children. Then, after a moment’s reflection, she added: “And if we advise Ada to put her money into a business which you are just about to have nothing more to do with, shan’t we feel obliged to pay her back supposing she loses it?”

It was an absurd idea, but in my new rôle of altruist I exclaimed:

“And why not?”

“But can’t you see that it is our first duty to think of the dear children?”

Of course I saw! It was only a rhetorical question without any meaning.

“Haven’t they got two children as well?” I asked triumphantly.

She burst out laughing at this and made so much noise that she frightened Alfio, who stopped feeding and began to cry. She busied herself about him, still laughing, and I accepted her laughter as a tribute to my wit, though at the moment I asked the question I had felt a sudden wave of affection for everyone who had children, and for all the children of those parents. Her laughter, however, quite drove the feeling away.

My dismay at finding that I was not really good was becoming less acute. I felt as if I had solved that distressing problem. One is neither good nor bad, just as one is not so many other things besides. Goodness is the light which in brief flashes illuminates the darkness of the human soul. A burning torch is needed to light the way, (there had been moments in my life when such a torch shone on my path and it certainly would again), and the human intelligence must choose by its light the way it will have to take afterwards in the dark. So that one could continue to do good always, and that was the important thing. When the light returned to guide one it would neither surprise nor dazzle. Perhaps I should even blow it out straight away, as I should have no need of it; for I should have learnt how to keep my resolution, how not to lose my way.

The resolution to be good is a peaceable and practical one, and I had now become calm and cool. It was curious that this access of virtue had enormously increased my self-esteem and belief in my own powers. What could I do for Guido? In his office, it is true, I was as superior to all the others as old Olivi was to me in my own. But that did not prove much. To get to business: What advice should I give to Guido the next day? Should I rely on my inspiration? But even at the gaming-table one cannot always rely on one’s inspiration when one is playing with other people’s money. To keep a house of business going one must find some work for it every day, and that can only be done by devoting hours on end to organising it. I was not the person for a job like that, nor did I see why, just for the sake of being good to Guido, I must be condemned to a life of continual boredom.

All the same I could not help regarding my sudden virtuous impulse as a responsibility that I had assumed towards Guido, and I could not get to sleep. I sighed deeply several times and even groaned once, no doubt at the moment when I was feeling that I ought to bind myself to Guido’s office as Olivi was bound to mine.

Augusta murmured, only half awake:

“What is the matter? Have you quarrelled with Olivi again?”

That gave me a brilliant idea! I would advise Guido to take young Olivi as his business manager. He was such a serious, hard-working young man; yet it was distasteful to me to have him in my own business for I always felt he was only waiting to succeed his father as director and oust me altogether. It was obviously to everyone’s advantage that he should be in Guido’s office instead. If he were to give him a good position in his business, Guido would be saved and young Olivi would be much more useful in that office than in mine.

I was so excited by the idea that I woke Augusta to tell her about it. She was so enthusiastic that she became quite wide awake. She thought it would be the easiest way for me to get free from the dangerous muddle of Guido’s business. I fell asleep again with a quiet conscience; I had found a way of saving Guido without condemning myself to perpetual bondage; in fact I was now completely free.

Nothing is more disagreeable than to have one’s advice rejected when one has even sacrificed several hours of sleep to thinking it out. I was obliged to sacrifice an illusion too; the idea that I might be of some use in arranging Guido’s affairs for him. I had really made a superhuman effort. First I had fought my way through to real goodness, then to absolute objectivity, and all they did was to send me to hell!

Guido treated my advice with utter contempt. He did not believe that young Olivi was capable of doing it; he disliked his prematurely old appearance and particularly loathed his spectacles, which shone so horribly on that pale face. The reasons he gave were such as to make me feel that the only thing he really wanted was to annoy me. He finally said that he would be quite glad to appoint old Olivi instead, at the head of his office. But I did not see any way of inducing the old man to go in with him; besides, I did not feel equal to undertaking the management of my own affairs at a moment’s notice. I was foolish enough to discuss it with him, and to say that old Olivi was not good for much. I told him how much money he had made me lose, all because of his obstinacy in refusing to buy dried raisins at the right moment.

“Well!” exclaimed Guido. “If the old man is as bad as that, what chance is there of his son being any better? He is simply his pupil.”

This was the first good argument he had produced, and it was all the more irritating to me because my foolish gossip had supplied him with it.

A few days later Augusta told me Guido had suggested to Ada that she should indemnify him for half his losses. She refused, and said to Augusta:

“First he is unfaithful to me and then asks for my money!”

Augusta had lacked courage to advise her to give him any money, but assured me she had done her best to make Ada reconsider her verdict on her husband’s infidelity. Ada’s reply suggested that she knew a good deal more about it than we realised. And Augusta argued with me as follows:

“I know one ought to be prepared to sacrifice everything for one’s husband, but do you really think that it applies to Guido too?”

During the next few days Guido’s behaviour was really extraordinary. He would come to the office from time to time, but never stay there for more than a quarter of an hour; he dashed out again as if he had left his handkerchief at home. I heard later that he always went to Ada with fresh arguments—always decisive—to induce her to do what he wanted. He looked like someone who has been crying or shouting too much, or has just been in a fight, and even when he was with us he could not repress his emotion; it choked him and brought tears to his eyes. I asked him what was the matter. He replied with a sad but friendly smile, as much as to say that he had no quarrel with me. Then he tried to control himself enough to be able to talk to me without getting too excited. At last he brought out these few words: Ada was making him suffer by her jealousy.

He then went on to tell me that they spent their time in discussing their personal affairs, whereas I knew that there was also that question of “debit and credit” between them.

But it appeared that the latter was of no importance; so he said, and so Ada said to Augusta, to whom she never talked of anything but her jealousy. And the violent nature of those discussions, which left such deep traces on Guido’s face, made it possible that they were speaking the truth.

But afterwards it appeared that nothing was talked of by the two but this money question. Ada was entirely absorbed in her emotional grievances, but she was too proud ever to mention them to Guido, and he, perhaps partly because he was conscious of his guilt, and also because he was afraid of encountering Ada’s jealous anger, went on discussing business as if nothing else existed in the world. He ran after her money with untiring perseverance, while she, who was not in the least interested in business, countered his proposal with one unvarying argument: she must keep her money for her children. And when he tried other arguments, his peace of mind, the advantages the children themselves would derive from his work, the sense of security he would have if he could only put himself right with the law, she always dismissed him with a hard “No,” which exasperated him, and made him, like a child, only the more determined to get what he wanted. Yet both of them, when talking about it to anyone else, thought they were perfectly accurate in saying that the only difference between them was jealousy and wounded love.

A sort of misunderstanding prevented me from interfering at the right moment to put an end to this dreadful money question. I could easily have proved to Guido that it really had very little bearing on his affairs. I am rather slow at figures and can only understand things when I have them all set out in black and white in a book, but I think I arrived fairly soon at the conclusion that the sum Guido demanded from Ada would not have made very much difference. What was the point, really, in her making over her money to him? It could not diminish his losses unless she consented to throw her money directly into the balance-sheet, a thing which Guido had never asked of her. The criminal court would not have been much impressed to discover that after such heavy losses he was prepared to risk a little more by attracting more money into the business.

One morning Guido did not put in an appearance at the office, which surprised us as we knew that he had not gone out shooting the evening before. At luncheon Augusta told me, in a state of great agitation, that he had made an attempt on his life the evening before. He was out of danger now. I must confess that this news, which Augusta took so tragically, only made me angry.

He had adopted that drastic method to break down his wife’s resistance. I soon discovered that he had omitted no precaution, for before taking morphia he had been careful to be seen with the uncorked bottle in his hands. So directly he fell into a coma Ada sent for a doctor and he was very soon out of danger. Ada had passed an awful night, because the doctor had thought it his duty to make certain reservations about the effects of the poison, and her agitation was increased by Guido himself, who, when he came to, and even before he recovered consciousness completely, overwhelmed her with reproaches, calling her his enemy, his persecutor, the one person who prevented him from doing the good work he wanted to do.

Ada immediately gave him the loan he asked for, but at last, in an endeavour to defend herself, she spoke openly to him, and poured out all the grievances she had smothered for so long. They finally came to an understanding, for Augusta thought he had succeeded in dissipating all Ada’s suspicions as to his fidelity. He had emphatically protested his innocence, and when she mentioned Carmen he had exclaimed:

“Are you jealous of her? Well, if you like, I will send her away this very day.”

Ada had made no reply, meaning that she accepted his proposal, and assuming that he would feel bound by it.

I was astonished that Guido was able to behave thus while still under the effect of morphia, and was tempted to believe he had not even swallowed the small dose he said he had. I thought that one of the effects of the clouding of one’s brain by sleep was to soften the hard kernel of the mind and induce the most naïve confessions. Had not that very thing happened to me recently? This only tended to increase my distaste and contempt for Guido.

Augusta wept as she told me of the state in which she had found Ada. Her eyes were wide with terror, she had lost every trace of her former beauty.

My wife and I had a long discussion as to whether it would be better for me to call on Guido and Ada at once, or to pretend to know nothing about it and wait till Guido came to the office. The thought of that visit filled me with horror. How could I see him without telling him what I thought of him? I said to myself: “It is a cowardly thing to have done! I have no desire to commit suicide, but if I decided to do so I should certainly do it thoroughly!”

That was how I looked at it, and I wanted to say so to Augusta. But I thought I should be doing Guido too much honour by comparing him to myself, so I said:

“One doesn’t need to be a chemist to destroy the very delicate organism of the body. Not a week passes in our town but some little sempstress swallows a solution of phosphorus which she has prepared all by herself in her attic; there is no antidote to this primitive poison. She is carried off to die, her young face distorted by moral and physical pain. What agonising moments her innocent little soul has had to endure!”

Augusta refused to admit that the soul of the sempstress was so very innocent, but after a brief protest she renewed her attempt to make me call on Guido and Ada. She said I need not be afraid of feeling embarrassed. She had talked to Guido, who had treated the matter very calmly and as if he had only behaved in the most ordinary way.

I left the house without giving Augusta the satisfaction of seeing that I was convinced of her arguments. After hesitating a moment I decided to do what she wanted. During the short walk between our houses the mere rhythm of walking made me take a milder view of Guido’s action. I remembered the direction in which the light had pointed, that a few days ago had illumined my mind. Guido was a mere child, a child to whom I had promised to be indulgent. If he did not succeed in killing himself first, even he would arrive at maturity.

The servant showed me into a room which I took to be Ada’s boudoir. It was a gloomy day, and it was dark inside that little room, with its single window covered by a dark curtain. On the walls hung portraits of Ada’s and Guido’s parents. I was only there a few minutes before the servant came to call me and took me into the bedroom. It was large and bright even on a day like that; for it was lit by two high windows and had a light wallpaper and furniture. Guido was lying in bed with a bandage round his head, and Ada was sitting beside him.

Guido received me without any embarrassment; on the contrary, he was most grateful to me for coming. He seemed half asleep, but he woke up to greet me and was soon wide enough awake to give me his orders for the office. Then he sank back again on the pillow and closed his eyes. I wondered if he had remembered that he ought to give the impression of being still under the effects of morphia. In any case it was impossible to be angry with him; all my fondness for him returned and I felt very sympathetic. It was a moment or two before I could trust myself to look at Ada; but when I did look I was agreeably surprised, for I expected something much worse. Her eyes were larger than usual, it is true, in fact disproportionately so, but her cheeks had lost their swollen appearance, and she seemed to me to look more like herself. She had on a full red dress which buttoned up to the neck, and her slender body seemed quite lost in it. There was something very virginal about her appearance, and her large eyes gave her an air of great severity. I could not have explained exactly what I thought about her, but I had the impression of standing before a woman who resembled the Ada I had known.

Suddenly Guido opened his eyes wide, took from under his pillow a cheque on which I saw Ada’s signature, and gave it to me, asking me to pay it in and credit it to an account which I was to open in Ada’s name.

“In the name of Ada Malfenti or Ada Speier?” I asked Ada playfully.

She shrugged her shoulders and said:

“You two will know which will be best.”

“I will tell you later how to make the other entries,” said Guido, with a sharpness in his tone which I found offensive.

I felt inclined to interrupt the somnolence into which he had once more sunk back, by telling him that if he wanted entries made he had better make them himself.

Meanwhile a large cup of black coffee was brought in, which Ada handed to him. He brought out his arms from under the sheets and raised the cup to his lips with both hands. He looked exactly like a child, with his nose buried in the cup.

When I said good-bye he promised to come to the office the next day. I had already said good-bye to Ada, so I was rather surprised when she joined me again at the front door. She brought out with difficulty:

“Zeno! Please come here a moment. There is something I want to say to you.”

I followed her into the little room I had waited in before; from it I could hear the crying of one of the twins.

We remained standing, facing one another. She was still breathing heavily, and this made me think for a moment that she had called me into that dark little room to beg me for the love I had once offered her in vain.

Her great eyes were terrible in the darkness. I felt quite frightened, and wondered what I ought to do. Wasn’t it my duty to take her in my arms, and spare her the shame of having to ask anything of me? A host of resolutions sprang up in my mind at the same moment! One of the great difficulties of life is guessing what a woman wants. Listening to what she says is no help, for a whole speech may be wiped out by a single look, and even that is no guide if one is alone with her, by her own invitation, in a cosy, dark little room.

As I could not guess what it was she wanted I tried instead to understand myself. What did I want? Did I want to kiss those eyes and that skeleton body? I could not give a decisive answer because only a short time ago I had seen her looking so severely virginal, and as desirable as when I had loved her as a girl.

Her agitation had now given way to tears, and I was still in the dark as to what she wanted, and what my feelings were towards her. At last in a broken voice she told me again how much she loved Guido; so I had no right to her, then, no duties towards her. She stammered out:

“Augusta told me that you wanted to leave Guido, and not take part in his affairs any more. I must beg you to go on helping him. I don’t think he is capable of carrying them on alone.”

She asked me if I would go on doing what I had been doing before. It was really very little and I thought I might offer to do a little more. I said:

“Since you wish it, I will go on helping Guido. I will do my best to help him more effectually than I have done hitherto.”

There I was exaggerating again! I realised it the very moment I had committed myself, but it was too late then to turn back. I wanted to tell Ada, falsely perhaps, that she meant a great deal to me. She did not want my love, only my support, but I spoke in such a way that she might think I was ready to grant her both.

She suddenly seized me by the hand. A thrill went through me. A woman who offers you her hand offers you a great deal. I have always felt this; and when I take a woman’s hand I feel as if I were taking her altogether. I was conscious of Ada’s body close to mine and as we stood thus locked together I felt as if we were embracing each other. It was certainly an act of intimacy.

She added:

“I must return to Bologna at once to the sanatorium, and it will be a great comfort to me to know that you are with him.”

“I will stay with him,” I said resignedly. Ada must have thought my air of resignation referred to the sacrifice I was making for her. But I was really resigning myself to returning to my very ordinary everyday life, since she had no thought of joining me in the very exceptional life I had dreamed of.

I made an effort to come down to earth again, and immediately found myself confronted with a problem of book-keeping which was not easy to solve. I had got to credit Ada’s newly opened account with the amount which was written on the cheque. That was clear; but it was not at all clear what bearing this could possibly have on Guido’s debit and credit account. I said nothing about it to Ada, for perhaps she was ignorant that such a thing existed in the world as a day-book in which such very diverse accounts were entered.

But I did not want to leave that room without saying something more. Instead of talking about book-keeping I carelessly threw out a remark, just for the sake of saying something, which I soon felt to be very significant for Ada, Guido and me, but above all for me, because I was compromising myself again. The remark seemed to me to be so important that I remembered for years afterwards how lightly I had opened my lips to utter it in that dark room, with the four portraits of their ancestors, wedded there on the wall, looking down at us. I said:

“You ended by marrying a queerer man even than me, Ada!”

It is strange how a word can bridge time! It is itself an event which is linked to other events. And those words of mine became a tragic event because they were addressed to Ada. I should never have been able by thinking about it to evoke so vividly the hour in which Ada had chosen between Guido and me in that sunny street where, after days of waiting, I had at last succeeded in meeting her; and how I had walked beside her trying to force a smile from her which I then hailed as a promise! And I remembered too, how the difficulty I experienced in controlling the muscles of my legs made me feel inferior to Guido, who moved with even more ease than Ada herself, and whose only mark of inferiority was the extraordinary stick which he insisted on carrying.

She said in a low voice:

“Yes, that is true!”

Then, smiling fondly at me she said:

“But I am so happy for Augusta’s sake that you have proved yourself a much better man than I ever imagined.”

She sighed and went on:

“So glad, that it comforts me a little for finding Guido quite different from what I expected.”

I said nothing; I still did not know what to make of it. I felt as if she had said that I was now what she had hoped Guido would become. Was she in love with me then? She went on:

“You are the best man of our family, all our hope and trust is in you.” She seized me by the hand again, and perhaps I pressed hers too hard, for she withdrew it so quickly as to leave me no further doubts. It again became quite clear how I was expected to behave in that little boudoir. Perhaps it was to mitigate the sudden withdrawal of her hand that she threw me another caress. “Now that I know what you are really like, I hate to think of having made you suffer. Did you really suffer so much?”

I gazed back into my dark past in search of that suffering and murmured:

“Yes!”

Little by little the memory of Guido’s violin came back to me, and then how they would have turned me out of their drawing-room if I had not clung to Augusta; and then again the drawing-room in the Malfentis’ house where one couple made love at a Louis Quatorze table, while the other couple watched them from another table. And I suddenly remembered Carla; for she had seen Ada too. I heard her voice again quite distinctly, telling me I belonged to my wife—meaning Ada. The tears rose to my eyes and I repeated:

“Yes. A great deal! A great deal!”

Ada actually sobbed as she said: “I am so very, very sorry.” She pulled herself together and said:

“But now you love Augusta!”

A sob interrupted her for an instant, and I trembled, not knowing whether she had stopped short to see if I should confess or deny my love. Fortunately she did not give me time to speak, but continued:

“Now we are really able to feel to each other like brother and sister. I need you; I have got to be a mother to that great child of mine, I have got to protect him. Will you help me in my difficult task?”

Her emotion made her almost lean against me, as in my dream. But I forced myself to concentrate on what she was saying. She was asking me to love her like a brother; the bond of love which I thought bound me to her was thus transformed into a fresh right claimed by her from me. I promised at once to help Guido, to help her, to do everything she wanted. If I had been calmer I should have told her how unequal I felt myself to the task she had allotted me, but this would have destroyed the never-to-be-forgotten emotion of that moment. And I was so moved that I was incapable of feeling my insufficiency. At that moment I could not believe in anyone’s insufficiency. Even Guido’s only needed a light breath of enthusiasm to blow it away.

Ada accompanied me to the landing and stood leaning on the banister to watch me go down. That was what Carla used to do, but it was curious that Ada, who loved Guido, should do it too, and I felt so grateful to her that before I went down the second flight I looked up and waved to her again. Lovers always did that, but clearly friends might do so too.

I went away with a light heart. She had come with me to the top of the stairs, but no farther. There was no room for doubt. Our position was now this: I had loved her and now I loved Augusta, but my former love gave her a claim on my devotion. She went on loving “that man of hers,” but reserved for me a strong sisterly affection, not only because I had married her sister, but to make up to me for everything she had made me suffer, which now constituted a secret bond between us. This relationship of ours was very sweet, and of a fragrance rare in this life. Ought not such sweetness to have brought me health? And in fact I did walk that day without difficulty or pain; I felt magnanimous and strong, and was conscious of a new sense of security in my heart. I forgot that I had ever been unfaithful to my wife (and that in a very discreditable manner), or, if I remembered it, I resolved never to do anything of the sort again; and I really felt myself to be what Ada said I was, the best man of the family.

When this heroic mood slowly faded away I should have liked to revive it, but Ada had meanwhile left for Bologna, and I could not succeed in squeezing a fresh stimulus out of what she had said to me. I would do what I could for Guido, but a resolution like that could neither increase the air in my lungs nor the flow of blood in my veins. I still entertained a very tender feeling for Ada in my heart, which was renewed each time she sent me an affectionate message in her letters to Augusta. I heartily reciprocated her affection and watched the course of her treatment with eager solicitude. Perhaps even yet she might recover all her former health and beauty!

The day after my conversation with Ada Guido came to the office and began discussing the entries he wanted to make. He said:

“Let us put half our debit and credit account down under Ada’s name.”

So that had been all the time what he wanted to do, and it was really quite useless. If I had still been his mere unreflecting agent, as I had been up to a few days ago, I should have made those entries without thinking any more about it. But now I felt it my duty to tell him everything. I thought it would stimulate him to work if he knew that he could not so easily cancel the losses he had incurred.

I explained to him that, so far as I knew, Ada had given him the money to put down to her credit on her own account, and that it would not be at all the same thing if we put half his losses down in the opposite column. Further, that part of his losses which he intended to bear himself ought to go down to his account. But then the whole of his losses ought to go down to his account as well, and instead of cancelling them that would only make them more evident. I had thought about the matter so much that I had no difficulty in explaining it to him. I concluded:

“Supposing we found ourselves in the position Olivi foretold—which God forbid—a practised eye would at once discover from the books exactly what your losses were.”

He gazed at me in astonishment. He knew enough about book-keeping to understand me, and if he could not do so it was because his wishes prevented him from accepting the evidence. Then I added, so that there should be no fear of his misunderstanding:

“Don’t you see that there was no point in Ada making this payment?”

When at last he understood he grew very pale and began to bite his nails nervously. He stood there wrapt in thought, but made an effort to control himself, and with his comic, magisterial air insisted that all the entries must be made as he had prescribed, adding:

“In order to relieve you of all responsibility I am ready to make the entries myself and sign them with my own name.”

I saw quite clearly that he wanted to go on dreaming, but there is no room for dreams in double entries!

I remembered all I had undertaken on the heights of Via Belvedere, then I remembered Ada in her dark little boudoir, and I said magnanimously:

“I will make the entries you wish. I don’t think they need the authorisation of your signature. I am here to help you, not to put obstacles in your way.”

He shook me warmly by the hand.

“Life is difficult,” he said, “and it is a great comfort to me to have a friend like you near me.”

We looked feelingly into each other’s eyes. His were shining.

To avoid giving way to a like emotion, I said smiling:

“Life is not difficult, but very original.”

He laughed heartily at this sally.

Then he stood over me to see how I proposed to settle that profit and loss account. It was all done in a few minutes. The account ceased to exist, but not without dragging Ada’s account with it into the abyss. We credited her nevertheless with the amount in a small separate notebook, in case a sudden catastrophe should destroy all other evidence of the loan, and as proof that we had paid her the interest. The remainder of the profit and loss account went to swell Guido’s already very considerable debit account.

Accountants are by nature a race of animals much inclined to irony. While making those entries I thought to myself:

“One account, that known as profit and loss account, died a violent death; the other—Ada’s—died a natural death, because it was impossible to keep it alive. Only Guido’s we could not succeed in killing; its eternal debit is an open grave which sooner or later will swallow up all our undertaking.”

Book-keeping remained a subject for discussion in the office for a long time. Guido racked his brain to discover another method of protecting himself against the wiles of the law, as it pleased him to call them. I think he must have consulted an accountant too, for one day he came into the office and proposed destroying all the old books, and opening new ones in which we were to put down a sham sale in some name or other—Ada’s money figuring as payment of the same. It was painful to have to undeceive him, for he had hurried to the office full of such lively hopes. But the fraud he now proposed to perpetrate was quite revolting to me. Hitherto we had only played at shifting real transactions about from one column to another; only somebody who had implicitly given his consent to the procedure could possibly suffer from it. But now he was proposing actually to invent business transactions which had really never existed. I too saw that it was the only possible way of covering up every trace of our losses. But what a price to pay for it! We should be obliged to invent the name of a buyer, or to ask somebody’s permission to write him down as such in our books. I had no objection to seeing the old books destroyed, though I had written them with so much care, but it would be a nuisance to have to make new ones. I made various legal objections which in the end convinced Guido. It was not so easy to forge a whole business transaction; we should have to forge as well all the documents proving the existence of the wares in question and of our right of possession.

He gave up that plan, but the following day he arrived in the office with a fresh one, which also involved destroying all the old books. I was tired of seeing all the work of the office help up by discussions of this sort, and protested:

“To see all the time you spend thinking about it, one would suppose you were actually proposing to become bankrupt! Otherwise what difference can such a small reduction of your income make to you? No one has been justified hitherto in asking to see our books. What we have got to do is to work, and not waste our time in thinking about such follies.”

He admitted that the thought had become a positive obsession with him. How could he help it? He only needed a short run of ill-luck to plunge straight into an encounter with the criminal law and finish up in gaol!

I knew from my study of law that Olivi’s statement of what is incumbent on a business man who shows a balance-sheet like Guido’s could not be improved on, but I advised him, in order to escape from his obsession, to consult a solicitor friend of his own.

He replied that he had already done so, or rather that he had not been to him for that express purpose, because he did not wish to confide his secret to a solicitor, but that he had contrived to turn the conversation on to the subject whilst out shooting with his friend. So that he knew, alas, that there had been no mistake and no exaggeration in what Olivi had said!

Realising what an inane occupation it was, he ceased exercising his ingenuity on fresh schemes for falsifying the accounts, but did not thereby recover his peace of mind. Whenever he came to the office he stood with lowering brow, gazing at his account book. One day he confessed to me that as he came into our room he suddenly thought he was standing in the entrance of the prison, and wanted to run away.

One day he said:

“Does Augusta know all about our balance-sheet?”

I blushed because I thought the question implied a reproach. But it was clear that if Ada knew about it Augusta might do so too. This did not occur to me at once; instead I thought that I deserved any reproach he might address to me. I murmured however:

“She may have heard of it from Ada or perhaps from Alberta, to whom Ada may have said something about it.”

I thought I had taken into account all the possible ways by which Augusta might have heard about it, without however denying that she had had it direct from the fountain head; that is to say, from me. I anyway implied that it would have been useless for me to keep silence. It would have been much better, and I should have felt much more loyal and upright, if I had said straight out that I had no secrets from Augusta. The simple fact of pretending not to have done some perfectly innocent thing which it would have been much better to own up to, is quite enough to endanger a really genuine friendship.

I will set down here, though it has no bearing on Guido nor on my story, that a few days later that cackling broker, with whom we had had some dealings over the sulphate of copper, stopped me in the street and gazing up at me—a procedure to which his insignificant stature obliged him—said ironically:

“They tell me you have been doing some big business lately, like your sulphate of copper deal!”

When he saw me turn pale he shook me by the hand and added:

“For my part I wish you every success. I hope you don’t doubt my word!”

Thereupon he left me. He had probably had news of us from his little daughter who was in the same class as Anna at school. I did not mention the encounter to Guido. My chief duty was to save him from unnecessary worries.

I was surprised that Guido took no steps to get rid of Carmen, for I knew he had definitely promised his wife to do so. I expected Ada to return home after several months’ absence, as she had done last time. But instead of returning to Trieste she went to stay in a villa on Lake Maggiore where, shortly afterwards, Guido joined her with the children.

On his return, either because he remembered his promise or because Ada had reminded him of it, he asked me if I did not think it would be possible to employ Carmen in my office—that is to say, in Olivi’s. I knew there was no post vacant in that office, but as Guido was so insistent I consented to go and talk to my chief about it. By a fortunate chance one of Olivi’s staff was leaving just then, but his salary was lower than Guido had been giving Carmen during the last few months; for, as far as I could see, it was his custom to charge his donations to his women friends to the general expenses account. Old Olivi asked me about Carmen’s qualifications and offered to take her on the same terms as the employee who was leaving, though I gave her a brilliant testimonial. I told Guido, who scratched his head in his embarrassment and annoyance.

“What does he mean by offering her a lower salary than what she has been receiving? Couldn’t you persuade Olivi to give her the same for the present?”

I knew it was out of the question and, moreover, that Olivi was not in the habit, like us, of regarding a woman employee as his wife! If he had thought that Carmen deserved a krone less wages than he had offered her he would have cut them down pitilessly. The end of it was that Olivi did not get her, and did not even ask for a definite answer; while Carmen continued to roll her lovely eyes in our office.

Between Ada and me there was a secret, which remained important just because it was a secret. She wrote regularly to Augusta, but never told her of the explanations she had had with me, nor that she had confided Guido to my care. I said nothing about it either. One day Augusta showed me a letter from Ada which concerned me. She began by asking for news of me, and ended by appealing to my goodness of heart, and begging me to tell her something of how Guido’s affairs were going. My heart beat at the thought of her appealing to me, but grew calm again when I saw that she had, as usual, only applied to me for news of Guido. Once more I had no excuse for taking any liberties.

I said nothing about it to Guido, but agreed with Augusta that I had better write to Ada. I sat down, fully intending to write to her only about business, and said that I was very pleased at the way Guido was conducting his business now; he was so industrious and alert.

This was true, or at least I was satisfied with him on that particular day, because he had succeeded in making some money by the sale of goods which he had had stored in the town for some months past. It was true that he did seem rather more industrious, though he still went out fishing and shooting every week. I rather exaggerated my praise of him because I hoped it might hasten Ada’s recovery. I re-read the letter, but was not satisfied with it. Something was lacking. Ada had addressed herself to me, and certainly wanted to have news of me as well, so that I should be lacking in courtesy if I failed to give her any. And by degrees—I remember it as distinctly as if it had just happened—I felt as embarrassed, sitting at that table, as if I had been face to face again with Ada in her dark little boudoir. Ought I to press the hand she had held out to me?

I wrote on, but was then obliged to re-write my letter because I had used some compromising expressions; I was longing to see her again, I wrote, and I hoped she would soon have recovered all her former health and beauty. But this seemed to suggest that I wanted to hold for life a woman who had only offered me her hand. My duty was only to press her hand, to hold it long and tenderly in my own, so that she might understand that I meant a great deal more than I could ever say.

I won’t repeat here all the phrases I passed in review, trying to find something which might take the place of that long, tender, eloquent handshake—but only the phrases I actually wrote. I said a good deal about my approaching old age. I could not stand still a moment without growing old. Each time the blood circulated in my veins something crept into my flesh and bones which betokened old age. Every morning when I woke the world took on a greyer hue; I only did not notice it because everything was of the same dull hue. There was not one touch of the colouring of the day before; otherwise I should have detected it and my regret would have driven me to despair.

I remember very well the complete satisfaction with which I posted that letter. There was nothing compromising in the words themselves, but if Ada were feeling like me she would understand perfectly that affectionate handshake. It did not require much penetration to guess that my long disquisition on old age meant no more than that I feared love could no longer catch me up in my rapid flight through time. I seemed to be crying out to love: “Come to me, come!” But I am not at all sure that I really wanted this love and, if I feel any doubt about it, it is simply because I know that I really did write something of the sort.

I made a copy of the letter for Augusta, leaving out my disquisition on old age. She would not have understood it, but it is better to be on the safe side. I might have blushed to feel her eye on me, whilst I was holding her sister’s hand in mine. Yes! I was still capable of blushing. And I really did blush when I received a note of thanks from Ada which made no mention at all of my discourse on old age. I felt that she had compromised herself much more by this than I had ever done. She had not withdrawn her hand from my pressure. She had left it lying passively in mine, and for a woman to remain passive is a form of giving consent.

A few days after I had written the letter I discovered that Guido had been gambling on the Bourse. I learnt it through an indiscretion of the broker Nilini.

I had known him for years, for we had been at school together; he had been obliged to leave suddenly to go into his uncle’s office. We had met again occasionally, and the difference in our fortunes had given me a certain ascendancy over him. He would be the first to salute, and he made various attempts to get into closer touch with me. This seemed to me quite natural, and I was the more surprised that at a certain moment—I don’t remember exactly when—he took up a very haughty attitude towards me. He no longer took any notice of me when I met him, and made hardly any response to my greeting. I was a little worried by this, for I am very thin-skinned and easily hurt. But what could I do about it? Perhaps he had discovered I was in Guido’s office, and despised me because he thought I held a subordinate position in it or, what is equally probable, his uncle being now dead and he on his own as a stock-broker, he had become rather pleased with himself. In narrow circles like ours this sort of thing often happens. Without there being any open enmity, two people suddenly begin to look at each other with dislike and contempt.

So I was surprised to see him come into the office one day when I was alone there, and ask for Guido. He took off his hat and held out his hand. Then he immediately sank into one of our great arm-chairs. I watched him with interest. It was years since I had been at such close quarters with him, and the dislike he had shown me made me observe him with the closest attention.

He was about forty at that time, very ugly and almost entirely bald, except for an oasis of thick black hair at the back of his neck and another on his temples; he had a thick nose and a yellow, hairy face. He was short and thin, and had to stretch up so much when he talked to me that I used to feel a sympathetic pain in my own neck, the only feeling of sympathy he aroused in me. On that particular occasion he seemed to be trying to restrain himself from laughing, and his face was contracted by a sarcastic or contemptuous smile which I could not regard as personally offensive, seeing that he had greeted me in such a friendly way. I discovered later that nature, in a whimsical mood, had stamped that expression on his face. His jaws did not close properly, and on one side of his mouth there always remained a gap which compelled him to wear habitually an ironical expression. It was perhaps in order to adapt his character to a mask which he only succeeded in casting off when he yawned, that he took such apparent pleasure in teasing people. He was no fool, and there was often a poisoned head to his arrows, though he preferred to shoot them at the absent.